american goldfinch

Bear Creek Nature Park: Life-or-Death Drama…but Always the Persistence of Life

/ Cam Mannino / 2 Comments

View through the woods to a wetland at Bear Creek

Bear Creek Nature Park is the Oakland Township Park I know best. I’ve walked there with my husband Reg for almost thirty years and brought some sort of camera with me for the last thirteen of them. As the winter ebbs each year, we watch for the appearance of the first narrow leaves of Spring Beauty or Blood Root under certain trees. Each May, we check out a huge hole in a particular oak, hoping for a glimpse of this year’s raccoon kits scrambling up and down within in the trunk. My husband has an eagle eye for the slowly moving hulk of snapping turtles gliding across the surface of the marsh and we both listen each summer for the banjo-like strum of the Green Frog’s song at the Center Pond.

But after all these years, we can still be fascinated by something we’ve never seen before, as you’ll see in the life-or-death drama of two determined foes fighting for life on the western slope last week. It’s a fresh experience to watch a trio of Eastern Bluebird fledglings sorting out their relationships in the Eastern Meadow. Amid all the comforts of the turning seasons with their eternal cycles of emerging, blossoming and subsiding, we can still be amazed by the persistence of life. Let me show you what I mean.

High Drama on the Western Slope

The Western Slope at Bear Creek Nature Park, August 2019

My husband and I headed for the western slope one perfect summer day and came upon two small creatures in a life-or-death contest. My husband spotted a large, yellowish/white  caterpillar with five spiky, black  hairs chewing avidly on a Box Elder leaf (Acer negundo). I learned later from Dr. Gary Parsons, Collection Manager and Bug House Director at Michigan State University’s Etymology Department, that it was the larva of an American Dagger Moth (Acronicta americana). When we stopped to look more closely, we saw a large, exotic-looking insect hovering nearby. Oh boy, I recognized this determined female.

An Ichneumon Wasp hovering near an American Dagger Moth caterpillar

It was an Ichneumon Wasp (family Ichneumonidae), a creature that preys on caterpillars in order to plant its eggs in or on them. When the eggs hatch, the unfortunate victim provides a plentiful source of food for the Ichneumon Wasp’s young!

This female kept her long abdomen with its ovipositor curled upward like a scorpion as she maneuvered near her target. The caterpillar clearly sensed the danger of her presence because it began to rear back its head along its body, thrashing forward each time the insect approached. The wasp first hid under a nearby leaf and then leapt forth, for all the world like a silent movie villain!

The Ichneumon Wasp appears from behind a leaf as the caterpillar begins to thrash to keep it off.

The battle went on and on in the bright sunlight. The wasp repeatedly attempted to gain  purchase on the caterpillar, but its bristled body and its constant thrashing made depositing the wasp’s eggs extremely difficult.

The Ichneumon Wasp tries to land on the caterpillar but the caterpillars bristles and its thrashing are quite a defense!

They were worthy opponents. We waited a long time but the battle continued to rage – the caterpillar eating the leaf between attacks to keep its energy up and the wasp trying desperately to deposit its eggs on a nourishing food source. Eventually, we left them both to their fate and walked on into the morning.

It was a peaceful change of scene to see male and female Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) settling on plants nearby. I hope they mated and laid eggs earlier since they were landing on Common Milkweed (Asclepia syriaca) that weren’t young and tender, but too dry and tough to provide much nutrition for their offspring. Perhaps they were some of the first Monarchs to start migrating south to Mexico. [Click on photos to enlarge; hover cursor for captions.]

This female Monarch may be resting before the long journey to Mexico.
The bumps on the hingwing veins mean this is a male Monarch.

In early August, we saw a female Monarch fluttering among fresh Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) in the meadow west of the Center Pond. Monarch caterpillars specialize; they only eat milkweed leaves. Perhaps this one’s young are currently nibbling their way along the leaves of this plant, intending to molt, pupate and emerge before the migration.

On August 1, we spotted a female Monarch fluttering among Butterfly Milkweed, perhaps eating, perhaps stopping to lay her eggs.  

Just a short way along the Western Slope trail, a slightly worn Viceroy Butterfly (Limenitis archippus) settled on Queen Anne’s Lace. Viceroys look very much like Monarchs and recent research indicates that both species use their color to advertise that they are unpalatable to predators. However they can be distinguished from Monarchs by the thin, black lines across the veins of the hind wings. Often, too, they tend to flutter more frequently than Monarchs which beat their wings quickly and then coast for a few moments in flight.

The black lines on its hind wings distinguish the  Viceroy Butterfly  from the Monarch.

Viceroys have another defense against predators like the Ichneumon Wasp. Their caterpillars look like bird droppings! Here’s a photo of one shared by a photographer who uses the name jdfish1 at inaturalist.org. What a strategy this butterfly evolved for protecting its young!

The Viceroy’s caterpillar looks so much like a bird dropping that predators may not even notice it.

On to the Pond:  A Stealthy Fisher and I Share Strategies

A native Michigan Lily (Lillium michiganense) blooming in a moist area just west of the Center Pond in early August

As I turned down the path that leads to the Center Pond, I was confronted by a wriggling, bristly caterpillar who appeared to be suspended in mid-air right in front of me. The Hickory Tussock Moth (Lophocampa caryae), like the Dagger Moth caterpillar, is covered with bristly hairs that can cause a skin rash if you pick either of them up. Since it pupates in leaf litter after eating on leaves, it was wriggling out an almost invisible string in order to carefully lower itself to the ground. It didn’t look fully grown to me because it hadn’t developed the long black hairs front and back of later instars. I wished it well and passed on.

A Hickory Tussock Moth in mid-air while lowering itself to the ground.

But after a few steps, I stopped again. A young Green Heron (Butorides virescens) sat preening in a branch near the dock.

A juvenile Green Heron preening in the sunlight.

I love watching these birds fish, so I approached very cautiously, repeatedly taking a few slow-motion steps each time the heron looked out toward the pond and then pausing when it looked even slightly in my direction. After checking out its feathers, it flew down to stand in the water, stretching out its long neck. It didn’t stay there long; Green Herons often prefer to hunt from a perch rather than wade like the Great Blue Herons, for example.

A juvenile heron stretches it neck after landing in the water.

I continued to stealthily approach each time the heron’s focus turned out toward the pond.  And suddenly, it flew to the dock and began to hunt in earnest. I As I watched it verrrry sloooowly step down to the edge of the dock and stretch out its neck to search for prey, a huge smile spread across my face. I almost laughed aloud. I thought, “You and I, Green Heron, have developed the same strategy, except I want a photo and you want a meal!”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It didn’t score a meal that time. It gave up and flew to the other side of the pond. Here’s what it was probably looking for, but couldn’t quite reach – a Green Frog (Rana clamitans) immersed in duckweed, who lived to mate another day.

A Green Frog enjoying the cool duckweed and warm sun at the Center Pond.

When I reached the deck, a family of three small Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa) with an adult female were feeding off the bright green Common Duckweed (Lemna minor) on the far side of the pond. Three other young wood ducks cruised around by themselves, far from the others.

I’d seen this same grouping at the bird walk a couple of days earlier. This time though, the female spotted me in the distance and disappeared into the vines at the far edge of the pond.   When she returned, she appeared to have summoned the male who’d been hiding  because he clearly was molting. His gorgeous iridescent green crest and curvy “duck tail” were being replaced by more sedate non-breeding plumage. He and the female quickly stood guard over their family group as if to put me on notice!

The male Wood Duck came out of the vines despite being in molt when summoned by the female to defend the young from that strange person with the camera on the deck.

The other three ducklings came a bit closer to the others, but again seemed to be happy on their own. I wondered if they were from her first brood, since Wood Ducks can breed twice in a summer, though the minimum number in a Wood Duck clutch is usually six. So maybe she just had three slightly more independent offspring and three who needed more protection? No way of knowing.

The male Wood Duck eventually decided I was not a threat and disappeared back into the tangle of vines to work a bit more on his molting process.

The male Wood Duck pulling on feathers during his molt.

My husband and I watched an Eastern Wood-pewee  (Contopus virens) sally forth from the shrubbery to hawk for insects. But as soon as it returned to the dead vines at the pond edge, it almost disappeared from view. See how quickly you can spot it here:

A camouflaged Wood-Pewee disappears into the landscape while foraging at the pond.

As I left the pond, walking along the eastern boardwalk, I heard the “miaou” call of a Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis). One of the birders had pointed out a catbird there earlier in the week and I’d taken a quick photo. But I told the others that I’d always wanted a good photo of the rusty undertail coverts of these birds and I’d never gotten one. Well, two days later, I heard the “miaou”  again, and there it was obliging me  by showing the part of its anatomy that I’d read about but never caught in a photo.

In the meadow west of the Center Pond, the Wednesday birding group also spotted a male Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) dropping down into the grass to feed and then quickly rising again to the nearest branch. I got a quick photo then to share with you, but didn’t see the bird again during the week. Keep an eye out when you’re there. He’s a beautiful eye-full, even when looking a bit bedraggled either from parenting duties or perhaps the beginning of his molt.

An Indigo Bunting foraged in the meadow west of the Center Pond.

Out on Bear Marsh with Snappers!

Bear Creek Marsh on a breezy summer day

In the woods on the way to the marsh, a movement at our feet caught our attention. A tiny American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus) about 3/4 of an inch long, hopped onto some leaves and froze, hoping perhaps to blend into the background and escape notice; camouflage is a basic survival strategy for toads. Though they breed in shallow water,  they spend most of their time on land. I love this little toad’s chubby legs. Small as he is, he’s off into the larger world to feed and if lucky enough to survive, produce another generation of toads.

A tiny American Toad. Juveniles like this are more active during the day than adult toads.

Along the way, some small white mushrooms stood tall along a seam in a log. Crown-tipped Coral mushrooms (Clavicorona pyxidata) are aptly named. They do resemble undersea corals and their tips are recessed and surrounded by little points. They grow only on dead wood, especially hardwood that has lost its bark. So they are helping to recycle the forest for us and creating this odd, but lovely life form in the process.

This Crown-tipped Coral mushroom is probably at bit past its prime since it’s no longer white. Or it may just not have gotten enough sunlight.

A couple of striking insects also appeared as we passed through the wood toward the marsh. A Northern Pearly Eye butterfly (Enodia anthedon) landed in a bare spot on the trail, sunlight shining through its wings. This butterfly doesn’t feed on flowers, but on tree sap, rotting fruit, decaying vegetation, even carrion – transforming death back into life. The life cycle of butterflies is full of amazing transformations, so why not one more?

The Northern Pearly Eye frequents shady wooded areas unlike many other butterflies.

Dr. Gary Parsons of MSU also helped me identify this cartoonishly cute, metallic native bee near the marsh as being from the family Halictidae. They are commonly called Sweat Bees, the ones that are attracted to your perspiration. But this tiny one was sipping from the drying blossoms of a native wildflower called Jumpseed  (Persicaria virginiana), so called because according to Michigan Flora,  if the plant is disturbed, it can propel mature seed about 9 feet, a nifty means of dispersal!

A native, solitary bee from the family Halictidae sips nectar from native Jumpseed.

At  least six Common Snapping Turtles (Chelydra serpentina) moved slowly through the water at Bear Creek Marsh, their shells looking like moving clumps of mud. Snappers are generally shy and harmless except when bothered on land. Their plastron (the lower shell) is  small, leaving parts of its body exposed and vulnerable. They can’t completely disappear inside their shell and be safe like many turtles. So on land, their only protection is flinging out their very long necks and biting. Snappers clean our lakes and marshes of bacteria much like vultures clean our land, by consuming underwater carrion, but unlike vultures they also forage for live prey and aquatic vegetation.

A large adult snapper gliding  slowly through the water at Bear Creek marsh.

The edge of the dock at the northern entrance to the marsh is blooming with Arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia), a lovely aquatic plant that produces white flowers sprouting from both sides of a stalk or “raceme”- and the large, vivid arrow-shaped leaves are almost more beautiful than the flowers! Dragonflies cling to them like bright baubles. What a sight on a summer morning!

Male flowers sprout above female ones on the stalks of Arrowhead.
A female or juvenile Widow Skimmer (Libellula luctuosa)
Male Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis)

The Eastern Meadow: Young Birds Out on Their Own..Sort Of

The Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) is just getting ready to turn the meadow gold. A male American Goldfinch (Spinus tristus) stood on a thistle and happily tore off some of the Goldenrod buds, possibly to feed either his mate or young. Goldfinches don’t start breeding until late summer when the thistles provide down for nests and seeds for growing broods.

A male Goldfinch stands on a thistle while feed on Goldenrod buds

Once he looked up and saw my camera, he gave me a wary glance but went right back to foraging.

A male Goldfinch giving me and my camera careful consideration before returning to eating or gathering seeds.

Joe Pye (Eutrochium maculatum) blooms in soft patches of bright pink blossoms with purple stems along the eastern trail. There’s just enough moisture to keep their “feet wet,” and the Bumblebees (genus Bombus) hum contentedly as they search for nectar from both the buds and the shaggy, open blooms.

A Bumblebee sips on Joe Pye buds

A bumblebee moves delicately through Joe Pye blossoms

A Common Wood Nymph (Ceryonis pegala) butterfly bobbed along pausing periodically in the deep grass. I mistook it at first for the Little Wood Satyr because they look similar. But the Wood Nymph is almost twice as big and frequents grassy fields while Wood Satyrs prefer shady woods or wood edges. The Wood Nymph also appears a bit later in the summer than the Wood Satyr.  Glad my source, Butterflies of Michigan by Jaret C. Daniels set me straight!

The Common Wood Nymph likes sunshine and is twice the size of the Little Wood Satyr.

When I first saw three fledgling Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis) near the top of the trail, they were all sitting on a sign together. But as I approached,  two of them rose into the air and began mock fighting, banging into each other, flying away, settling for a moment, and then mock fighting again. They were too quick for me to snap a photo. Meanwhile the third little bluebird went off on its own, first looking about and then pecking quietly in the grass as it had no doubt seen its parents do.

A solitary little Bluebird fledgling left its siblings to forage in the grass.

Eventually it flew to a bare tree far off in the field and calmly surveyed the whole field. The blue on its wing tips and tail feathers was much more apparent in the full morning sunlight.

The blue tail feathers of the solitary fledgling Bluebird shone in the light.

The two more social siblings finally settled next to each other on the edge of a sign. After all that mock fighting, they snuggled up against each other – though I wonder if an ornithologist would tell me that the play fighting was dominance behavior and the positioning of the one fledgling’s head over the neck of the other meant that they had settled the pecking order between them.

Two bluebird fledglings settle together after play fighting over the field.

I later spotted two fledgling Bluebirds next to a male adult in a tree along the Walnut Lane. I wondered if the two fledglings were the scrappy pair who rested on the sign. All three seemed to be focused on the field. Maybe they were looking for the solitary fledgling who preferred to be off on its own. It was fun to imagine family dynamics among bluebirds.

An adult male Bluebird with two fledglings in a tree along the Walnut Lane.

What I think was a small Amber Snail (family Succinea) left a shining trail behind it on a milkweed leaf as I left the Eastern Meadow. Amber snails are described as land snails but they also live in moist environments. I was a bit surprised to see one out in the sunshine when we’ve had such blistering hot days this summer!

An Amber snail explores the possibility of a Common Milkweed leaf.

At the curve of the path that leads to the Walnut Lane, a busy adult Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher  (Polioptila caerulea) did its best to keep up with a very flighty fledgling that begged insistently as it bounced from branch to branch. As you can see from the slight blur in its photo below, I had some trouble keeping up with the youngster myself! Dr. Ben VanderWeide, our township Stewardship Manager, showed me a Gnatcatcher nest that fell near his home. So imagine how tiny that fledgling had to be at birth to fit in that lovely nest with possibly  as many as four other hatchlings! Look for the white eye ring and the white feathers on either side of  the dark tail feathers to identify these active little birds.

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher foraging to feed its active fledgling.

The frenetic Gnatcatcher fledgling waiting to be fed.
A lovely Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher nest found by Dr. Ben

A Short Trip Through More Summer Blooms

A glorious abundance of Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) below the boardwalk north of the playground.

I couldn’t detail all the wildflowers and grasses that I enjoyed at Bear Creek Nature Park in the last week, so take a short stroll through the rest of them here. Their color adds so much joy to a summer walk!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Life Calls Us Out to Explore

Little Henry explores Bear Creek Nature Park

Reg and I met twenty-month-old Henry trotting along the path west of the Center Pond as his parents took a rest on a nearby bench. He looked content to just keep moving up the trail, seeing what he could see. It was clear he was happy to be there. Henry reminded me of the third Bluebird fledgling that I described earlier – happy to be off on his own, exploring the big beautiful world that he’s just beginning to understand.

What’s so great is that Henry’s experience is accessible to all of us, no matter our age. If we get out in the natural world with our curiosity and eyes wide open, we can’t help being surprised and delighted by it all – even two small insects determined to fight the other off to pass on their DNA to a new generation. Bird parents exhaust themselves caring for their young. Wildflowers fight their way up out of hard soil to bud, bloom and send their seeds forth into the world. Butterflies, turtles, even fungi recycle death back into life. Life in all its multifaceted glory keeps struggling to persist. And it’s our responsibility as stewards of this glory to keep working hard to make that possible. Here in Oakland Township, the residents have made a commitment to support that call to stewardship – and even in the midst of a tough 2020, I think that’s something to celebrate. Bet you do, too.

Birds, Butterflies, A Few Blossoms and Basking Turtles: Circling the Eastern Side of Draper Twin Lake Park

/ Cam Mannino / 7 Comments

Looking from the south side of Draper marsh toward the northern prairie.

The eastern side of Draper Twin Lake Park grows more inviting every year. Some of the former farm fields there had been abandoned for decades when Oakland Township Parks and Recreation acquired the property in 2005. Dense thickets of invasive shrubs crowded the shores of the marsh and began to spread within what had been a rolling prairie and oak savanna landscape in the centuries before European settlement.

But restoration is slowly changing this somewhat scruffy park back to its former beauty.  After forestry mowing, the trail by the marsh, once choked with stands of non-native shrubs, now provides open vistas.

The trail on the west side of the floating marsh is now cleared of invasive shrubs so that a stand of native White Pines (Pinus strobus) and other trees can be appreciated.

The dark water of the marsh sparkles between the scrim of trees and shrubs that surround its shores. The roots of grasses and shrubs form a floating mat at the heart of the marsh, creating nest sites for birds large and small. Migrating birds flit through the trees at the marsh edge singing spring songs. Some settle in to mate, nest and raise young; others simply forage, rest and move on.

IMG_6640

Photos and text by Cam Mannino

On warm days in the northern prairie, tiny spring butterflies dart and dance within the dry stalks of last year’s prairie wildflowers and grasses, while the shimmering blue wings of Tree Swallows soar and dip above them. By mid-summer, fresh prairie grasses will sway above fields mixed with the bright colors of native wildflowers and big beautiful butterflies. But even a cool spring day can be beguiling.

So just for a few minutes, escape with me. Muster your imagination as we explore Draper Twin Lake Park together. Listen to a brisk breeze hushing in your ears and feel warm sun on your shoulders as I take a turn around the marsh and then circle the field on the prairie trail loop on a bright spring morning.

In the  Spring, the Marsh is the Place to See and Be Seen!

DTLP_TrailMap

My Draper Twin Lake Park hiking route

Wetlands mean wildlife in every one of our parks. After parking at the building at 1181 Inwood Road, I headed left, leaving the path to enter the trees that shelter the south edge of the floating mat marsh, pictured at the top of the blog.

The clarion “wika wika” call of Northern Flickers (Colaptes auratus) throbbed overhead as these elegant woodpeckers whisked back and forth in the treetops, competing for mates and territory. This mustached male and his mate will spend the summer with us, nesting in a tree cavity, but foraging on the ground, unlike other woodpeckers; ants are a favored meal for flickers.

A male Northern Flicker challenging other males with his “wika wika” call

A pudgy, green-gray bird hopped about within a tangle of vines, repeatedly flicking its wings and only pausing for a few seconds each time it jumped to a new twig. The male Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula) was enjoying a bit of R&R before flying north, possibly as far as Hudson’s Bay. Imagine! On those tiny wings! There its mate can lay 5-12 eggs in a 4 inch nest woven with grasses, feathers, moss, cocoon or spider silk and lined with finer grass and fur. Never underestimate the little Kinglet!

My photo was a bit blurred by movement in a heavy wind, but bird enthusiasts and excellent photographers, Bob Bonin and his wife Joan, also visited Draper in the last two weeks. In fact, we chatted from a safe social distance when we came across each other at the park.  They generously offered to share some of the photos they took at Draper. So here’s Bob’s rare shot of an excited little male with his crown raised! Thanks for the loan, Bob!

An excited male Ruby-crowned Kinglet with his crest raised – a rare sight to see with this busy little bird. Photo by Bob Bonin with permission.

Joan shared two other migrating birds she saw on the east side of Draper. The Black-throated Green Warbler (Setophaga virens) sports such dramatic plumage! It has two versions of its song that has a lot of buzz and a smaller bit of  “tweet” in it. One song is directed at competing males and the other is used to attract females. Find an explanation of both, a video and some recordings here at Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website.

The Black-throated Green Warbler doesn’t come to feeders and breeds a bit farther north of us and farther into Canada. So it’s a treat to see one! Photo by Joan Bonin.

Joan also provided us with a lovely photo of a Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) at Draper. Cornell Lab reports that this modest little milk chocolate bird with the spotted breast utilizes “foot quivers,” when foraging, shaking its feet in the grass to stir up insects. I will watch for that the next time I see one!

Hermit Thrushes breed north of us where its flute-like call is more likely to be heard. Photo by Joan Bonin.

A pair of Palm Warblers (Setophaga palmarum) skittered around me within the low bushes at the marsh. Traveling from the Caribbean to Canada, they were hungry. Their tails wagged up and down as they grazed along the ground for insects. This one thought it might have spotted something interesting in the crevices of tree bark. Note the brown crown, yellow eyeline, throat and the yellow under its tail.

According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology, ninety-eight percent of all Palm Warblers and thousands of other species breed in the boreal forests of northern Canada, an essential ecosystem!

Looking north, I spotted something large in the trees at the far north end of the marsh. For the second time this spring, I got a distant look at a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) surveying the landscape. I’m so used to seeing these birds wading at the edges of ponds. It always delights me to see them perching high up in a tree, though I know their big, flat nests are always situated at the top of high trees in their rookeries.

A Great Blue Heron looking out from the treetops at the far north end of Draper’s floating mat marsh.

As I moved to the west side of the marsh, I looked up into the frothy blossoms of one of my favorite native trees, the Serviceberry (Amelanchier interior).

The rippling petals of a Serviceberry in a spring wind.

This tree with its plumes of white blossoms in the early spring offers a native alternative to the non-native Callery/Bradford Pear trees (Pyrus calleryana) that flower at the same time. If shopping malls and housing developments bloomed with this native beauty each spring, the fields of our natural areas would not be invaded by groves of the invasive pears. We can hope for a change as the value of native plants is better understood by more landscapers.  Several stately serviceberry trees dot the early spring landscape at Draper Twin Lake Park. Aren’t these clouds of dancing white lovely in the sparseness of the spring landscape?

A native Serviceberry tree makes a perfect replacement for the invasive, non-native Callery/Bradford Pear.

In a shadowy pool beneath low branches on the west shore of the floating mat marsh, some movement caught my eye. A Swamp Sparrow (Melospiza georgiana) dipped its head into the water while balancing on stick, probably plucking insect larvae or small invertebrates  out of the dark water. Fortunately this sparrow is equipped with long legs for wading and doesn’t mind the cold water, if this sopping-wet bird is any indication!

This swamp sparrow stuck its head under water while fishing for insect larvae or tiny invertebrates.

Out at the edge of the floating mat, a pair of Midland Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta marginata) warmed their shells in faint spring sunlight. Perhaps these two will mate or perhaps they’re just basking together. These two larger turtles could be quite old; Midland Painted Turtles sometimes live over 50 years!

Our Midland Painted Turtles can mate in the spring or fall.

The “boing!” call of a Green Frog (Lithobates climatans) surprised me, so I approached to search the water until I spotted this one. Since the round ear drum or tympanum is about same size as its eye, this is a female Green frog. She may have jumped the gun a bit with the changeable spring weather. Normally, Green Frogs don’t wake from their winter somnolence until the temperature reaches 50 degrees and they don’t mate until the weather is consistently warm. So this female may need to bide her time even though there was a male singing somewhere nearby.

The skin of Green Frogs darkens on cold days so they can soak up more sun.

Back out along the trail on the west side of the marsh, I met a turtle with a ferocious visage, a snout for snorkeling air from under water and an intimidating set of claws! Here’s the steely glare of this master predator, the Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina).

This Snapper must have emerged from the mud before heading out to look for companionship.

I’m kidding really. Yes, it did look fierce, but I was being stared down by a small Snapper maybe 8 inches long who probably was just curious.

This small snapper may not yet be mature enough to mate.

I have no idea of its age or what it was doing on trail. According to Wikipedia, a snapper can take 15-20 years to reach sexual maturity and mating is usually done while tumbling about in the  water. So unless this one is older than it looks and was looking for a place to lay eggs, it may have just decided to go on walkabout. Snappers sometimes move great distances to find less crowded habitat, as well as to lay eggs. After all, that carapace, an extremely long neck, powerful jaws and claws are pretty good protection for an adventurous young snapper.

As I stood at the north end of the floating mat marsh, a Green Heron (Butorides virescens) flew swiftly back and forth across the pond. Its yellowish-orange feet trailed behind its bulky body as it landed in the vegetation around the shore. Luckily, Joan later spotted one out in the open in the southeast section of the marsh. One way to spot this colorful bird is to listen for its distinctive “skeow” call;  listen here under the first “calls” recording. That’s the Green Heron sound with which I’m most familiar.

A Green Heron at Draper Twin Lake Park. Photo by Joan Bonin.

Her husband, Bob, saw a bird that I’d never come across before – and neither had Bob.  The Northern Waterthrush (Parkesia noveboracensis) loves wetlands and according to Cornell Lab of Ornithology, will even settle for a puddle if it’s near cover. It was migrating through on its way from the Caribbean to its breeding grounds in northern Canada. Bob went back to look for it again the next day, but it never appeared. I feel lucky that it “popped out of cover,” as Bob put it, at just the right moment for him to take his photo!

A rare photo of a Northern Waterthrush at Draper Twin Lake Park taken by Bob Bonin.

When I reached the southeast corner myself, a pair of Sandhill Cranes, heads down, were calmly feeding on the floating mat, looking up once a while, and then back to feeding again

This pair of Sandhill Cranes might consider the floating mat a good place for a nest since the marsh creates a kind of moat! Sandhills have nested here before.

As my camera zoomed in on that startling orange eye beneath the crimson cap on one of these huge birds, I hoped that they would choose to nest there as Sandhills did a few years ago. I’d love to see a “colt,” as their fledglings are called, join its parents at the Draper marsh.

A closer look at one of the Sandhill Cranes

That southeast corner of the marsh is full of turtles. I know that Blanding’s Turtles (Emydoidea blandingii) live at Draper Twin Lake Park because I once helped one across the road outside of the park and Donna, the Draper bluebird monitor, has seen them, too. Last week, I thought I saw their slightly domed shells deep in the grass at the southeast corner of the marsh, but they never raised their heads. But Joan Bonin and her very long lens caught this wonderful closeup of one! Thank you, Joan!

Joan Bonin’s wonderful photo caught the yellow throat perfectly, the distinctive field mark of the Blanding’s Turtle.

As I was looking for the Blanding’s turtle,  I noticed a dark lump laying in the water behind a mud flat in the marsh. Could it be? Was that a neck stretched out to gather some sun? I think what I saw was a large Snapper, its neck partially extended along the mud flat, camouflaged as just another black lump in the landscape. Look for its pointed head and eye to the right in the grass. That looks like a large snapper to me!

A large snapper masquerading as just another lump of mud in the Draper Marsh.

Some small upland birds share the southeast corner with turtles and herons. One dark, windy day, my husband and I caught sight of a Yellow-rumped Warbler (Setophaga coronata) and identified it from its characteristic yellow patch above the tail. It appeared to be the more modestly dressed female. Here are the photos I got from a distance 10 days ago and a much better one from 2015.

On a snag near the edge of the trees, a House Wren (Troglodytes aedon) ignored me completely while he belted out his wonderful, bubbling trill. According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology, their sharp, fizzy song sallies forth from Canada, through the West Indies, all the way to the tip of South America.

A House Wren, beak wide-open in full song.

The distinctively sweet “tweeting” of an American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) caused me to look up at this little splash of bright sunlight on a cloudy day. The males have donned their brightest colors and execute their rolling flight all over Draper.

A male American Goldfinch posed quite calmly near the southeast edge of the marsh.

On to the North Prairie!

Volunteer Donna Perkins has already found bluebird eggs in two of her boxes within the prairie!

Volunteer nest box monitors like Donna Perkins above are citizen scientists who are gathering data on which birds nest in the boxes, how many eggs they lay, how many days pass before hatching and fledging and how many little birds successfully leave the nest. Donna found six Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) eggs in two of her boxes. And along the prairie’s edge, male and female bluebirds surveyed the area, keeping an eye on their nests.

Don’t worry if you find a nest with eggs in your yard with no adult around. Birds take time off to forage and if scared off of their nest, will usually return. But most often, once the last egg has been laid, the adult will start incubating them most of the day, which helps ensure that they all hatch at the same time, making it easier to care for them.

Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) move into our township nest boxes as well. Usually, Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows will live in a neighborly way when their boxes are near each other, though occasionally there’s competition for a preferred box. Neither species, however, will tolerate another member of their own species moving nearby. So right now, the Tree Swallows are beginning to construct their nests with a mixture of grasses carefully lined with feathers. What a sight to see these shining blue beauties swooping over the field, periodically opening their beaks to snag passing insects. Joan Bonin got a fabulous shot of two of them in flight over the Draper prairie – an exciting and rare shot! Congratulations and thanks to Joan for sharing it.

Tree Swallows in flight above the Draper prairie. Photo by Joan Bonin.

A clear song rippled out from the tree line to our right. So loud! What was that? We finally located the rear end of a male Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) facing out of the park to the east. In the distance, we could hear his competitor singing as well.  Establishing territory is serious business, so our Towhee in the park never budged an inch, though we waited for almost 20 minutes, listening but frustrated that he kept his back turned. So the photo below was taken last year at Draper. This year’s towhee sang his “drink your teeeeeea” song much more slowly than usual, so it took longer to identify it. Maybe the song had more emphasis that way for the male in the distance!

An Eastern Towhee singing from a snag at Draper in 2019.

We came across, though, a sad sight on the prairie – an injured Nashville Warbler (Leiothlypis ruficapilla) feeding on a path but unable to take flight. It appeared right in front of us and at first I thought it had an injured wing. But when it turned its head, its eye was swollen shut. When I asked local birding expert, Ruth Glass, she said that it had probably hit its head on a window. When that happens, the brain can swell and they lose their ability to orient themselves. It was foraging on the ground and fluttered off into the tall grass. I include this just to ask that you do what you can to prevent such window collisions. Here’s a link from Cornell to get you started.

On a happier note, some small spring butterflies floated and fluttered near the prairie trails. I always wonder what criteria make them settle on one stem rather than another; much of their frantic fluttering seems aimless, but I doubt that it really is. I clearly don’t see what they do!

An orange flash in the grass made me think I was seeing my first Pearl Crescent, a common sight on summer days in our parks. But this mid-sized butterfly was an Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma). The upper (dorsal) side of both its forewings and hindwings are tawny orange with black spots. It was born last fall and is referred to as the “winter form”; it overwintered as an adult and will now mate and lay eggs. The caterpillars from those eggs will hatch around the Summer Solstice (June 21) and the offspring from that generation (referred to as the “summer form”) will still have orange forewings, but their hindwings will be much darker than this one.

An Eastern Comma sipping on an open dandelion bloom. It wintered over and will now seek a mate!

But look at the underside of this butterfly’s wings! The winter form Eastern Comma spends the cold months under tree bark or inside logs; that mottled brown design does a nice job of camouflage while they are hibernating, I would imagine.

The pattern on the underside of the Eastern Comma’s wings camouflages it during hibernation under tree bark.

A female Cabbage Butterfly (Pieris rapae) paused to sip at a dandelion, just as the Eastern Comma did. One good reason not to remove dandelions from your lawn in early spring is that native bees and butterflies benefit from the nectar of this non-native flower when few other blossoms are available. Male Cabbage Butterflies have one spot on their forewings; females have two.

A female Cabbage Butterfly benefits from the presence of dandelions.

A flash of lavender blue appeared in the grass – a Spring Azure (Celastrina ladon)! This little insect is only as big as your thumbnail. Its host plants (the ones on which it will lay eggs) include Wild Cherry, Flowering Dogwood, Gray Dogwood and Blueberries. This one didn’t stop long enough for anything but a photo of a blurry smudge of blue. So here’s the best photo I’ve ever gotten of one – only because it made the rare move of posing for a moment! If you see a blue blur flying by during July through September, that’s the Summer Azure (Celastrina neglecta), a different species.

The blue open wings of the tiny Spring Azure butterfly in a photo from 2015.

A surprise on the prairie was a Carolina Locust (Dissosteira carolina). I’ve never seen one this early in the year! Could it have rushed the season like the Green Frog? Usually the nymphs arrive when the weather is much warmer and this one appeared to have its wings which would indicate that it’s an adult. So I’m puzzled. Normally I would send this photo  to Dr. Gary Parsons, an insect specialist as Michigan State University – but I believe the university is closed during the pandemic. So if any reader has more information than I, please leave a comment to that effect. I love its beady eyes, but wonder if it survived the cold nights that followed.

The nymph of a Carolina Locust that hatched a bit earlier than it probably should have.

Restoring Complex, Nourishing, Chaotic Beauty

Draper Marsh, looking south toward Inwood Road

Farm fields can be so lovely in spring – neat rows of green as far as the eye can see taking the shape of a field’s rolling contours. But as I’ve watched the stewardship crew recreate the natural landscapes in our parks, I’ve come to love even more the glorious chaos of wild natural areas. Here at the eastern section of Draper Twin Lake Park, the fields of last year’s stalks once again host nesting Bluebirds and Tree Swallows, looking like shining bits of sky taking up residence in our midst. Turtles safely sally forth from the marsh mud to mate and warm their chilled shells in the pale spring sunlight. The dark water around the floating marsh hosts frogs, several jousting Red-winged Blackbird couples, and those ancient and elegant cranes. Weary avian travelers find respite, nourishment and for some, a place to raise their young. As years of invasive overgrowth are cleared, the old farm fields bloom with a rich array of native trees, grasses and wildflowers. Once again the marsh and the prairies take up their ancient role of providing shelter and nourishment to a whole and healthy community of wildness.  During this difficult time, restoration comforts and delights me – and many of you, too, I believe, since new visitors have recently explored our parks. Thanks for accompanying me, even at such a great social distance.

Draper Twin Lake Park: The Restless Transitions of Mid-Autumn

/ Cam Mannino / 3 Comments

A trembling aspen which leafed out in spring, and shed leaves in autumn,  despite having fallen across the Draper marsh in a storm at the end of last winter.  Rose hips from Swamp Rose (Rosa Palustris) in the foreground.

October is autumn’s transition month. Some days are warm and sunny, creating almost an illusion of late summer or early September. And on those days, a few bees and butterflies flutter across my path, caterpillars bump along through the grass and native wildflowers still bloom in the fields. A turtle in the Draper marsh basks in the thinning light.

Photos and Text by Cam Mannino

As the month moves on,  a sharpness edges the morning air and shadows slide across the landscape more quickly in the late afternoon. The birds are agitated  – snatching up as much seed as possible, drilling holes for snug winter hideaways, or pausing for an overnight respite before catching a north wind going south.

Change is in the air.  Let’s look back to see what October had to offer as we take the first cold, rainy steps into the austerity of November.

Early October: Late Season Wildflowers Host the Occasional Bee or Butterfly

One Sunday afternoon in October, a Common Buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia) fluttered down onto  the trail right in front of my husband and I. In the summer, Draper Twin Lake Park hosts a rainbow of butterflies. Some mate, lay their eggs and expire, leaving caterpillars behind in their chrysalises. But this colorful little butterfly migrates south for the winter and returns in the spring. Perhaps it stopped at Draper to sample the various goldenrods, since it prefers yellow flowers. Can you see the slightly bug-eyed expression on its face? I laughed to think it was as surprised to see my husband and I as we were to see it land right in front of us!

The Common Buckeye is a lovely little butterfly that I see most often during its migration to southern climes.

In early October, afternoons were still occasionally above 50°, warm enough for the European Honey Bees (Apis mellifera) to gather more winter stores. The nectar collected by these bees will be turned into honey for the hive to feed on in the winter. Having large stores of nourishment in the hive is crucial if honey bees are to survive the winter months, so this one paid no attention to me as it probed for some last sips of nectar.

A Honey Bee gathering nectar from an aster to feed the hive during the cold winter months.

The sturdy Heath Aster (Symphyotrichum ericoides) emerges as the summer fades and blooms heartily in the cooler temperatures. So any warm afternoon in fall, this lovely native wildflower offers itself to foraging bees in the hope of being pollinated quickly so that seeds will be ready before the snow falls.

Heath Asters make their own white snowstorm, often blooming right up until snow falls.

Brown-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia triloba) look a lot like their relative, the Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta). But Brown-eyeds tend to grow multiple stems from a single root and usually grow taller than the Black-eyed variety. I see them only in late summer or fall, whereas Black-eyeds last from June to September. Nice to have some fresh yellow wildflowers just as cool weather sets in!

Brown-eyed Susans are short-lived perennials that grow on mulitple stems.

A lone, fading Black-eyed Susan hid a tiny beetle among its petals and attracted a greenish-gray caterpillar busily nibbling off the tiny yellow flowers poking from the wildflower’s composite seed head. After pouring over the guide Caterpillars of Eastern North America by David L. Wagner, my best guess is that it’s the caterpillar of the Common Pug Moth (Eupithecia vulgata) whose larva has chevrons along its spine and which feeds on these flowers, among many other plants. If I’m right about the caterpillar (and remember, I’m just guessing!), the Pug Moth is a  modest gray- brown with a small dark spot on both its fore- and hindwings.

An insect caterpillar and a small beetle  as well as various windflower fibers have landed on a fading Black-eyed Susan.

In the grass, we found a Wooly Bear Caterpillar, the larva  of the Isabella Tiger Moth (Pyrrharctia isabella). If you look carefully below, you can almost discern its projecting mandibles (jaws) about to tear off the edge of a clover leaf. (Sorry for the blur. It was chewing rather vigorously!) The Farmer’s Almanac these days does a fine job of explaining the “folklore” behind the idea that the width of the color bands predict the severity of winter. A serious scientific study has never been done; it would require too many caterpillars over too many years. According to Wikipedia, however, Wooly Bears vary a lot in their color banding and the bands also tend to widen with each molt – so it’s not likely to be an ace weatherman.

A Wooly Bear caterpillar munching on clover.

In the marsh within the eastern section of the park, a Midland Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta marginata) found a sunny spot on the mud behind the dying leaf of a Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus). It closed its eyes, turned its head skyward and basked. Shortly it will sink to the muddy bottom and won’t emerge until spring. During winter, it actually stops breathing, but its slowed metabolism means it can survive on the oxygen that passes through its skin from the surrounding water. Hibernation is miraculous, isn’t it?

A Midland Painted Turtle in the Draper marsh basks in the thin sunlight of early autumn.

One birding morning on the western side of the park, Township Stewardship Manager, Dr. Ben VanderWeide,  introduced us to a colorful shrub off one side of Draper’s fishing dock.  It turned out to be Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix)! It’s a relative of the harmless and quite beautiful Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina), and a sibling to Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans). I’d never come across this bush with its gray bark and white berries, but the familiar red leaves of other sumacs. Luckily it grows within or at the edge of bogs, fens, marshes and other very wet places where my hiking shoes don’t often carry me. Look but don’t touch and don’t inhale its smoke are the watchwords here.  Poison Sumac is more toxic than Poison Ivy.  The Michigan Flora website has a great photo of it in bloom.

Poison Sumac looks quite glamorous in the fall with its red leaves and white berries.

A more benign plant sent a spray of red leaves across the lily pads in late September and early October. Native  Whorled/Swamp Loosestrife (Decodon verticillatus) is not a problem like the non-native, invasive Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria). This native wildflower produces purple blossoms along each stem and leaves that turn red in October. In November, its seed heads make a lovely pattern against the water of the lake. [Click on photos to enlarge; hover cursor for captions.]

Late October: Swaying, Russet Prairie Plants Provide a Fall Feast for Wildlife

The video above may look like a sea of dry brown stems to you.  But to the birds, particularly the American Goldfinches (Spinus tristis), it looks like your heavily laden Thanksgiving table. In just the video’s 40 seconds, you are seeing hundreds of thousands of seeds: Indian Grass, Coneflowers, Black-eyed Susans, Stiff Goldenrod, Little Bluestem and many more. On the August birdwalk, we spent a happy ten minutes or so watching a flock of goldfinches swaying on bobbing stalks as they stuffed themselves with Stiff Goldenrod seed (Solidago rigida). First there were two and then suddenly there were five all scrabbling to feed on the abundant seed heads.

Two Goldfinches eating while riding the swaying stalks of goldenrod.

Five Goldfinches ultimately enjoyed the seeds of just one clump of Stiff Goldenrod. (The fifth bird is semi-hidden at the lower right.)

A flock of Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis) sailed across the path far in front of us – just a swish of blue against the morning sky. Bluebirds restlessly move south a bit in the fall, but can often be seen here in the winter, even on icy days. I never got close enough for a shot during the birding walk, but I did see a flock at Bear Creek Nature Park a couple of weeks earlier. This pair seemed to be exploring the possibilities of a winter hole in a snag at Bear Creek.

The male bluebird pays close attention as a female checks out the possibilities of a hole in a snag.

In the distance, an Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) rocked on a low branch at the far edge of the field and repeatedly darted down into the grass. At last, it found what was possibly the cocoon of a caterpillar and it rose back to the branch, tail pumping as always, with its prize in its beak.

An Eastern Phoebe with what appeared to be a caterpillar’s cocoon.

Farther down the tree line, pulses of House Finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) flew down into the grass to feed and then back into the trees. It seems that the red heads and chests of the males are a bit paler in the fall. I know the depth of the hue depends on what they eat, so perhaps their favorite berries or seeds are not quite as available as the season wanes.

House Finches fluttering out of a tree in the distance at Draper Twin Lake Park

High overhead a pair of Sandhill Cranes (Antigone canadensis) bugled their way across the autumn skies. They were headed south but it may have just been one of their many practice runs before migrating to Florida.

Sandhill Cranes flying south over Draper Twin Lake Park

Over in the eastern section of the park, a Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) added its “miaows” from the hedgerow one afternoon, possibly calling a mate or youngster to share some wild Summer Grapes (Vitis aestivalis). I hope it’s a nice change from their summer diet, since number the insects that they eat during the summer is diminishing with the colder weather. The catbirds will be leaving soon to winter in Florida, Cuba, the Bahamas or along the eastern seaboard.

A Gray Catbird calls to a companion from a wild grape vine.

Down near the water, I noticed a lot of twitching in the shrubbery and waited in the shade for what might appear. The first bird that emerged was a familiar year ’round bird, the Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus). This tiny acrobat hung upside down, then rightside up,  twisting this way and that, to snatch as much seed as possible from Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis) near the lake.

A Black-capped Chickadee eating its fill of Canada Goldenrod

Small visiting migrators often show up around chickadees. Cornell Ornithology Lab provides a possible explanation. “Most birds that associate with chickadee flocks respond to chickadee alarm calls, even when their own species doesn’t have a similar alarm call.” Good to have a reliable sentinel! I’ve also read that visiting birds find food by hanging around local chickadees who presumably know the best foraging spots. That was certainly the case at Draper Lake. A migrating Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula) popped out into the open and began stripping seeds from the goldenrod just like the local chickadee. In the fall and winter, it pays to look carefully wherever chickadees are gathering.

A Ruby-crowned Kinglet joined the Chickadee in devouring goldenrod seed. A leaf cast an interesting shadow on its tiny back.

As I turned away from the Kinglet, I heard a call that I knew was a woodpecker and looked up. A large black and white bird landed on a nearby tree and began to peck at a hole. Wow! It was the closest I’ve ever been to a Pileated Woodpecker. And as an added bonus, the afternoon sun lit its crest with a scarlet glow. It may have been looking for the right tree in which to make a new hole, one lower than its nesting hole, that will serve as winter shelter.

A Pileated Woodpecker seemed to be considering whether a hole in this tree could be further excavated for a winter storm hideaway.

Near the end of the path, a Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) hopped about, restlessly picking up and dropping bits of this and that. Theoretically these sparrows, plentiful in the summer, can spend the winter here, but I rarely seem them after the fall. This one may have migrated here from farther north and also chosen to explore where the chickadee was foraging.

The sparrow near the lake has the typical long tail of a Song Sparrow.  If you could see its breast, there’d be a dark spot in the middle of its striping, another field mark.

I saw several other birds at Draper Twin Lake Park with the birding group in the last two months, but only through my binoculars.  A quick flash of red or yellow high in the fall leaves, a recognizable song in the distance, or a sudden chasing flight over the prairie – none of that provided a chance for a photo. However, I wanted to share these birds here so that you can appreciate how many birds can be seen at Draper Twin Lake Park in autumn. So here’s a short slideshow of some of them as seen in photos I’ve taken at other times, or in photos from the generous photographers at inaturalist.org. (Use pause button for captions.)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Relishing Autumn’s Transformation

Native Indian Grass swaying in an October wind

The Draper prairie with its great looping trail really may look dry, brown and lifeless to some hikers. But not to me. At this time of year, I feel a lot like Ratty, a “country gentleman” sort of muskrat in the children’s classic Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame, a book I quoted in an earlier blog. Like me, Ratty senses the restlessness of autumn. He heads out into a farmer’s field, much as I waded out into the tall grass of Draper’s northern prairie:   “…he thrust into the great realm of wheat, yellow, wavy, and murmurous, full of quiet motion and small whisperings. Here he often loved to wander through the forest of stiff strong stalks that carried their own golden sky away over his head — a sky that was always dancing, shimmering, softly talking; or swaying strongly to the passing wnd and recovering itself with a toss and a merry laugh. Here, too, he had many small friends, a society complete in itself…”

Ratty is a kindred spirit. Autumn also plunges me into the bending and tossing grasses and the whispering of dry stems where I can stand shoulder deep in the prairie and just “be” with it all. Like him, I sense a community of other creatures in the flocks of fidgety birds, the agitated butterflies searching for the last bloom, the relentless plodding of a caterpillar through the grass stems. Autumn’s restlessness urges me to celebrate the change, change and change again of every season.  I appreciate that reminder.

Charles Isley Park: Dressed in the Gold and Black of Late Summer

/ Cam Mannino / 5 Comments

Do me a favor, would you? Imagine standing in front of a huge meadow full of tall grass and wildflowers dancing in a soft breeze. You can hear crickets and cicadas singing in the deep grass. Now turn your computer’s volume to about half and click on the arrow in the image below. (You’ll hear a little of the wind in the microphone.)

Photos and text
by Cam Mannino

There! That’s a bit of what it’s been like at Charles Ilsley Park in the last few glorious weeks of August.  Goldfinches sing as they swoop in their roller coaster flights across the fields that are burnished with goldenrod. Butterflies, with golden wings fluttering, sip sweet nectar from the giant thistles. And all of this gilded beauty is backed by the sounds of a summer breeze sighing in your ear and the buzz of cicadas and crickets. That’s about as close to pure glory as my life affords.

The Glow Began in July…

The eastern path through the central meadow at Charles Ilsley Park on July 15, 2019

Let’s just say the Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) got magnificently carried away in the central meadow at Ilsley. Perhaps the contractor who planted wild seed last year had a wee bit too much of them in the mix? But I didn’t hear anyone complain when the meadow was literally blanketed in black and gold. By early August, they had browned, leaving behind seeds that will provide nourishment for migrators and winter birds.

Nature Comes Back with a Second Wave of Gold

A female Monarch (Danaus plexippus) stares out at me from a Black-eyed Susan finished off from the intense heat of July. Her wings are a lovely soft gold underneath.

In their place, though not quite as abundant, came a close relative, the buttery yellow Brown-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia triloba). Instead of a single flower on each stem like their black-eyed cousins, these Susans produce branching stems with profuse, but smaller blossoms which create a similar sunny effect.

Brown-eyed Susans emerged just as the Black-eyed Susans faded, though not in quite the same profusion.

Of course, August always brings waves of different Goldenrods to keep the gold coming in late summer. Right now, I commonly see three different ones: the cascades of Canada Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis), Stiff Goldenrod  (Solidago rigida) with its ramrod stems lined with clinging oval leaves and bouquet-like sprays of Grass-leaved Goldenrod (Euthamia graminifolia) which is from a different genus of the Aster family. Later in the month, we’ll begin to see the  upright, lemon yellow plumes of Showy Goldenrod (Solidago speciosa) doing its part to keep the fields golden right into September. (Click on photos to enlarge; hover cursor for captions.)

A stately plume of Canada Goldenrod
Stiff Goldenrod (Solidago rigida) with its fancy stalk lined with oval leaves
Grass-leaved goldenrod is really an aster, despite its common name.
Showy Goldenrod (Solidago speciosa) in summer

The Gray-headed/Yellow Coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata) add their droopy charm to the fields too, though their best days are behind them for this season. And the tall spikes of Common Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis) are topped by gold blossoms that stay open from evening until early morning, and later on cloudy days as well.

I love how native plants host so many insects in an era when the insect world is suffering from plunging numbers all over the planet. Here two False Sunflowers (Heliopsis helianthoides) standing next to each other hosted a Soldier Beetle (Cantharidae family) and the nymph of a Katydid (Tettigoniida family). Have a closer look at the amazing length of the katydid’s antennae by clicking on the right photo. One of the ways you can tell a grasshopper from a katydid is that grasshoppers have much shorter antennae than the very long, fine ones you’ll see on the nymph below.

Out in the far west of the park at the edge of the woods, a tall, striking, yellow flower with very unusual blossoms caught my eye. Dr. Ben VanderWeide, our township Stewardship Manager, identified it for me as Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia) – and indeed, its flat stem had narrow “wings” on either side. Wingstem flower heads cluster at the top of the 3′-8′ stem. Each bloom is actually a flower within a ring of flowers. The “disc florets” in this plant are the tube-shaped flowers that thrust outward from the center of the flower head. What looks like a ring of petals around the central disc is actually a ring of “ray florets” and each of them is an individual flower that has the ability to produce its own seed. In botany, “florets” are individual flowers within a flower head, whereas what we see as individual petals on ray flowers are really three petals fused together. And how about those curly little stigmas that we see whimsically protruding from the ends of the disc florets! What a fun wildflower!

Wingstem is not seen a lot in Michigan, but it’s now growing in two of our parks!

Wingstem has a limited distribution in Michigan, so we’re lucky to have them. These Charles Ilsley Park plants grew from seeds that Ben collected at the township’s Blue Heron Environmental Area, which was the only place he’s seen them in the township. It’s exciting to know that the seeds Ben planted at Ilsley have taken hold, so that we now have two parks in which this unusual native plant has found a home.

Birds Matching the Black and Gold Landscape

Let’s Start with A Goldfinch Saga!

American Goldfinches (Spinus tristis) – Unlike most other birds, Goldfinches start mating around mid- to late-July when the thistles bloom, which is a source for both nesting material and food for them. Once the first broods fledge in early August, most Goldfinches mate a second time.

On August 9, Mike and Joan Kent, birding friends, took a walk at Ilsley and spotted a nest in a thistle.  Joan peeked in and saw 3 eggs. They noticed a lot of Goldfinches nearby and assumed it was probably the nest of one of them. And that was that, until…

On our Wednesday bird walk on August 21, Vinnie Morganti, another member of our bird group, spotted the same nest located within the thorny stems of a tall Bull Thistle (Cirsium vulgare). A Goldfinch’s cup nest  is woven from plants and root fibers and lashed to a bush or plant with spider silk. Then it’s lined with thistle down which makes it close to waterproof inside. A small masterpiece. This pair chose a location which probably deterred predators, though it may have been a bit hard on the parents’ wings while feeding!

A Goldfinch nest tucked into a thistle and lined with thistle down

Peeking into the nest, I discovered  4 baby birds. Fellow birder, Tom Korb, got a photo of the blind and slightly fuzzy hatchlings by valiantly sticking his cellphone into the thistle above them. Tom and I decided to share monitoring these little birds until they fledged and report our findings to Cornell’s Nestwatch , a citizen science site we use for our township nest boxes.

Goldfinch hatchlings, probably about four days old,  cuddled up in a cup filled with plant down. Photo by Tom Korb.

We bird monitors are trained not to go to a nest more often than every 3 – 5 days. So when I returned to the park the following day, I stood far off looking through a long lens. Imagine my delight when I saw one little head popping up above the nest! I don’t know if it could see the meadow yet. Perhaps it was just enjoying the breeze ruffling its Einstein hairdo!

The fuzzy head of a goldfinch hatchling facing out into the meadow, perhaps to catch a breeze.

I came back to monitor on August 24 hoping to get a photo inside the nest despite the thistle’s thorns. I’d brought along the fancy, black leather gloves my mother had given me years ago to wear to  the theater – but here I was using them to reach inside a thistle! I could picture my mom laughing and shaking her head – but the gloves worked beautifully! In the photo, I could see the opened eye of at least one little nestling, though the rest were snoozing in their sturdy nest cup. It appeared that the beige tips of feathers might be emerging from their dark sheaths. We think now that they were about a week old in this photo.  They’d come a long way  from those blind babies in just 3 days!

Three days after we first saw them, their eyes were opening and their yellowish-beige feathers began to emerge from their sheaths. They were about a week old.

At our August 28 bird walk in another park, Mike Kent told us about his wife seeing the nest at Charles Ilsley Park on August 9.  Good news for us monitors, because that allowed us to use the guidelines on the Nestwatch site to estimate the age of the Goldfinch hatchlings more accurately. After the bird walk, I accompanied Tom on his monitoring trip to the Ilsley nest. What a change! Little heads peered up over the nest edge – eyes and beaks open. According to the Donald W. Stokes’ Guide to Bird Behavior (Vol.1), during their first week after hatching, Goldfinch nestlings are quiet but will silently reach up for food if the edge of the nest is tapped. In the second week, these nestlings begin making a lot of noise – but wisely only do so when a parent arrives with food. Tom got a great photo of the bright red mouth of a begging, but silent, youngster!

The bright red inside the nestlings mouth makes a nice target for its parent when feeding! Photo by Tom Korb

That day, all the nestlings, now about 11 days old, looked bright and alert, peeking out into the world and fully feathered. The Stokes Guide explained that those white blobs on the nest are fecal sacs, the avian equivalent of soiled diapers. Goldfinch nestlings are quite fastidious. The first week after the young hatch, adults carry the waste sacs away from the nest. But starting in the second week, little goldfinches back up to the edge of the nest and drop these little packages over the side!

A nestling peers at me from the nest at 11 days old, surrounded by the fecal sacs that  it and the others have dropped over the nest edge.

My last turn at monitoring the nest was on August 31 – and the nest was empty. The nestlings had become fledglings. Our estimate is that they fledged on their 12th or 13th day after hatching. The nest was remarkably clean inside (if not outside) which might have meant a healthier, more comfortable environment for the nestlings.  

I could hear a fledgling begging far off in a stand of thistle and through my binoculars, I thought I saw a couple of small birds fluttering among the stems. A female flew in among the thistle, perhaps feeding “our” fledglings from her second brood. A male seemed to be on sentinel duty nearby before he flew off to gather more seed. Off into the world for our Goldfinch fledglings! And the end of our nesting saga.

Hard-working Goldfinch Adults

While the females incubate a second brood, male Goldfinches  are on their own in feeding the first brood – which can be as many as seven fledglings, according to Cornell’s nestwatch.org! Begging calls of first brood youngsters could be heard a week ago as young fledglings pursued their harried parents around the park or called from the treelines to be found. This little Goldfinch fledgling seemed a bit more mellow than the rest.

A goldfinch fledgling watching for its father and no doubt hoping for a meal.

The Goldfinches’ primary food source is thistle seed so I’ve seen males all over the fields with thistle down (pappus) hanging from their beaks. They dig industriously into the seedhead, pull out the down, carefully nibble off the seeds and then let the down fly. Stokes informed me that they feed partially digested seed to their  young, as they also do for the mate during her first week on the nest. Quite a responsibility!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

More Gold and Black Birds!

In a bush in the far west meadow, I saw a flash of yellow and took a quick couple of shots as a bird perched for a moment and then flew.  I wasn’t sure what I’d seen. Local birding expert, Ruth Glass, identified it as a female Baltimore Oriole (Icterus galbula.) She told me that by now most of our summer orioles have left for Central or South America with their young, so the one I saw was likely a migrator from further north.

The birding group saw other birds sporting lovely yellow trim. A trio of Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) perched far above in a bare tree. Through binoculars, two clearly had the yellow bellies and yellow tail bands that identify this handsome bird. Juveniles have a fainter black mask and some brown streaking on the breast, but in this distant photo against a gray sky, it’s hard to tell if any of them were juveniles or adults .

Cedar Waxwings added their bright yellow bellies and yellow-tipped tails to a golden August morning.

Ruth Glass also helped me identify a strange looking dark bird that mystified me. She said she was “95% sure” it was a male Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) molting from his brilliant blue breeding colors  into his mostly brown non-breeding colors which are similar to the female Bunting. This mottled look is common for males during the molt. I would never have guessed! Thank you, Ruth!

A male Indigo Bunting in the midst of his molt into brownish non-breeding colors

Some large dark brown birds also added contrast to all the gold around them. A trio of Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura) rested on a broken snag near the edge of the center field. Through the trees on my way into the park, I saw one of them spreading its magnificent wings to the sunlight. They do this to warm them, stretch them, or to expose any bacteria on them to air and light.

A turkey vulture spreading its wings to the sun.

Around the corner, two other vultures perched on a broken snag. This one made me smile, because it looked as though it was appealing for a little sympathy. I’m afraid vultures don’t get much appreciation, though I think their soaring flight is graceful and the cleanup services they provide are crucial. Really, though, the bird was just preparing to preen.

Another vulture looks like it’s asking for sympathy, but it’s really just starting to preen.

The first vulture suddenly flew straight up in the air and landed rather awkwardly on a branch that was much too short. It fluttered clumsily right, then left, until it finally found its footing. Is it my imagination or are the other two a bit embarrassed by the graceless landing skills of their compatriot? Probably, my imagination….  (Tap arrow to play and to pause for reading captions.)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Butterflies Complement the Color Scheme

This August the huge, dramatic Giant Swallowtail butteflies (Papilio cresphontes) arrived in Charles Ilsley Park in large numbers. One afternoon about two weeks ago, perhaps a dozen of them landed delicately on the large purple blooms of Bull Thistle, or hovered in front of them, extending their long proboscises to sip while avoiding the thorns. I don’t know if this thistle is a favorite plant for these big butterflies or if they were just the biggest blooms with the most nectar when they arrived. They chased each other over the fields, creating a shimmer of gold and black all over the central meadow.

A Giant Swallowtail, one of many at Ilsley in August, sips nectar from a Bull Thistle.

You’ll note that the one above has a few missing pieces on its wings and that the black edges look a bit worn. I compared the very tattered dorsal (upper) side of one I saw on thistle at Charles Ilsley Park in late August with the fine specimen I saw on Bee Balm (Monarda fistulosa) at Stony Creek Ravine Nature Park in late July a couple of years ago. I wondered if the difference in wear and tear was due to feeding among thorny thistles or perhaps just the normal battering big wings take after an extra month of foraging and mating. I’m guessing a bit of both.

These dramatic swallowtails have expanded their range further north since about 2001 when first frosts became more uncommon in September – perhaps an effect of global warming. They lay their eggs on plants that will act as hosts for their larvae, which includes two of our abundant natives, Swamp Milkweed  and the Solidago genus of Goldenrods.

The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) made its elegant contribution to the black-and-gold meadows. These high-flyers raise 2-3 broods each summer. Their caterpillars spin a remarkable chrysalis that matches dead wood very closely. It’s held in place by a thin string of silk on one end of the chrysalis and a silk pad at the other. That’s where the caterpillar spends the winter. There’s a remarkable photo of a Tiger Swallowtail’s chrysalis at the bottom of this Wikipedia page. Be sure to click on it to enlarge so you can tell where the bark ends and the chrysalis begins! My photo below shows the tiny hairs on the swallowtail’s wings – the closest my camera has ever come to a Tiger Swallowtail, I think.

The blue spots at the bottom of her rather ragged wings tells me that this is a female Tiger Swallowtail. Perhaps sipping at thistles has taken its toll on her as well as the Giant Swallowtails?

Three small Lepidopterans played a role in the color scheme. Like the members of the Swallowtail family (Papilio),  a female Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) found Bull Thistle a good choice for nectar in this transition time just before the Goldenrods reach their full glory and other fall asters emerge. I admit I appreciate the non-native Bull Thistles more this year, having seen how much sustenance they’re providing after a torrid July brought an earlier end to the bloom of so many wildflowers. A Clouded Sulphur (Colias philodice) paused on the drying leaves of a Queen Anne’s Lace. I’ve wanted to see a chrysalis of these small butterflies ever since I read it described as “yellow with a pink zipper”! No luck yet.  And the Ctenucha Moth (Erebidae family) did a fine job of contrasting its black wings with the yellow Grass-leaved Goldrod.

Just like other swallowtails, the Black Swallowtail makes the most of bull thistles that thrived this year.
A Clouded Sulphur has black bands on the dorsal side of its wings.
A Ctenucha Moth on Grass-leaved Goldenrod

So much gold!  And I didn’t even include the gold and black bumblebees, wasps and honey bees foraging among this late summer landscape! Such riches, eh?

Late Summer Serenity

Sometimes life does come full circle.  Standing at the edge of the meadows at Charles Ilsley Park with sunlight falling on a fluttering, buzzing,  golden landscape, I could feel the deep sense of calm and quiet that I relished in our township in my childhood. On just such a morning then, I would stand on the sturdy limbs of a rugged old tree overlooking a wild pond or spread my blanket in the short grass near the shore and breathe in the comforting scent of warm earth and grass. I feel so fortunate as an older woman to still experience that certainty of being part of something big and beautiful that nature offers all of us if we take the time. I wish that for you, too.

Postcript: Watch for More Ilsley Photos!

Of course, Charles Ilsley Park offered me much more than gold and black in its rich diversity:  a wet spot in a field suddenly blooming with red and blue wildflowers, a fuzzy brown House Finch fledgling peeking through the greenery,  lavender blossoms emerging from the seedbank where a moist swale was restored, a dramatic Darner dragonfly decorated in a pattern of blue and green and more. So rather than extend this blog, I’ll create a shorter photo blog later this week to fill in the rest of the color palette at Charles Ilsley Park.  Hope you can drop by!

Draper Twin Lake Park: A Patchwork of Habitats

/ Cam Mannino / 1 Comment

I never know what I’m going to see or hear when I head into Draper Twin Lake Park. A large marsh separates the park’s two halves. If I start in the west side of the park, the shady trail is lined with moisture-loving plants and ends up at the fishing dock by the blue expanse of the lake.  If I park at the maintenance building  in the eastern half of the park, I ponder whether to circle left, passing a floating mat marsh, or head straight north to the beautiful restored prairie.

Photos and text
by Cam Mannino

All the choices are good ones, so let me share what’s blooming, buzzing and singing in Draper’s quilt of habitats. And then you can do your own choosing some summer afternoon.

The Western Section:  A Shady, Short Stroll to the Lake… or the Case of the Disappearing Wildlife!

Western trail to the fishing Dock at Draper Twin Lakes Park

I feel a bit like the fisherman with his story about the “one that got away” in describing the western side of the park this June. Whether alone or with fellow birders, I heard a lot more than I saw – though some of what I saw was wonderful. You’ll see what I mean…

The trail from the parking lot was green and cool on a hot day. My first encounter was with a small Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) as I came around a bend in the trail. The bunny took one look at me and disappeared into the grass. In a fine article by naturalist Katie McKiernan in the Seven Ponds Nature Center newsletter, I learned more about the phrase “breed like rabbits.” The Cottontail female is usually pregnant while nursing her previous litter! They mate from March to August, so I’m guessing female rabbits look forward to the autumn! Since this year’s bunny dashed off without a selfie, here’s one from a few years ago that has the morning sun shining through its ears .

A young Eastern Cottontail with the sun shining through its ears

High in the treetops, hidden among the leaves, I could hear the signature  “Drink Your Teeeeea” song of the Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus). Here’s my recording. You may need to turn up your volume a bit.

Despite some serious neck craning, neither I nor my fellow birders could spot any of the four we heard. But here’s a photo of one singing at Draper in 2017. All this lush foliage from the heavy rain is amazing, but not always the best for bird spotting!

An Eastern Towhee singing from a snag at Draper in 2017.

On a bird walk back in March of this year, the birding group was excited to see a pair of Cooper’s Hawks (Accipiter cooperii) in a bare tree near the lake.  We’d seen one near a nest there in 2016 and wondered if they had returned to nest near the lake again. What an impressive bird!

A Cooper’s hawk in March whose nest looked unfinished in June.

However, construction on a new house near the park border was making a lot of noise that morning and we wondered if that would affect their nesting. On my June trip, I hoped to see one, but wasn’t optimistic since we hadn’t spotted them with the bird group in April or May. While looking for the elusive Towhee, I caught site of a large, saucer-shaped nest high in a White Pine. The nest was difficult to see from every direction, a choice spot from a bird’s point of view..

What I think is a Cooper’s Hawk nest that had been abandoned by the pair that was here in March.

The nest didn’t look used; in fact it didn’t look as though it had been completed. Perhaps another missing creature? If this is the hawks’ abandoned nest, let’s hope they found a peaceful spot farther from the sounds of hammers and nails.

Luckily, other wildlife and some elegant plants did appear along the way to the lake. Lush purple native Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) bloomed in the dappled light under the trees. What appeared to be a Metallic Green Sweat Bee (genus Agapostemon) was gathering pollen on its hind legs. The contrast of the bright yellow pollen against the purple blossom must be a great signal to pollinators!

A Sweat Bee busily collects pollen on its hind legs in the center of native Spiderwort.

And nearby, I was delighted to see a bee among the drooping, elegant blooms of Tall Meadow Rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum). Since this pollinator seemed to be collecting pollen by smoothing it across its abdomen, it may have been a Leafcutter Bee (family Apocrita).

A bee spreading pollen on its abdomen, a characteristic of Leafcutter Bees.

I just have to show you this whole plant. Isn’t Tall Meadow Rue striking with its drooping pom poms?

Tall Meadow Rue makes a dramatic statement in moist shade.

As I neared the lake, I was greeted by a stand of giants, plants 4-8 feet tall with huge leaves. It turns out to be Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maxiumum), a plant that hosts huge numbers of bees, wasps, beetles and flies over the course of the summer. It’s a biennial which means it produces leaves, stems and roots one year, then flowers and seeds the next. Cow Parsnip can cause blisters or iritation if its sap on your skin is exposed to bright sunlight. But according to Wikipedia, Native Americans found many uses for it medicinally such as poultices from the roots for swelling or bruises and mosquito repellent from crushed leaves. They even made children’s flutes from this plant after removing the outer surface. Sounds like this beautiful and statuesque plant is best seen in its natural setting, though, not in my garden!

The 4-8 foot tall Cow Parsnip is gorgeous and host many pollinators, but its sap can cause sever blisters when affected skin is exposed to sunlight.

Down by Draper Lake, the Fragrant Water Lilies were beginning to bloom. The dragonflies will find them a great courting platform in the days to come, I imagine.

Fragrant Water Lilies on Draper Twin Lake

And among the aquatic plants near the fishing deck, a pair of Banded Pennant dragonflies (Celithemis fasciata) were already busy mating. The male clings to the stem and holds the head of the female. She clings to him, while curving her abdomen upward to receive the sperm. According to Wikipedia, this posture is appropriately called the heart or circle shape.

Banded Pennant dragonflies make a heart shape as they mate.

Since these dragonflies are in the Skimmer family (Libelluidae), the female will lay her eggs by “tapping the surface of the water repeatedly with her abdomen, by shaking the eggs out of her abdomen as she flies along, or by placing the eggs on vegetation.”

On the way back from lake, the birders and I saw an energetic little Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina) moving through the small trees. These small, pert sparrows with their chestnut cap and black eyeline prefer treed areas with open, grassy spaces – so you may have some on your lawn if you look closely!

Chipping Sparrows like to nest in treed areas with sunny grass for foraging. Your lawn might do!

A solitary walk one hot afternoon allowed me to share a moment with a young American Robin (Turdus migratorius). Where removal of invasive shrubs last year left some damp, open ground, the youngster landed and looked around. A Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) hiding in the shrubbery nearby sang its charming conversational collection of bird noises. I could never catch the Catbird out on a limb, so the Robin and I just spent a few quiet minutes together listening intently.

A juvenile Robin listens and looks around as a Gray Catbird sings in the shrubbery nearby.

I discovered a modest little summer wildflower peeking out of the grass. Lots of insects drink nectar from the tiny blooms of White Avens (Geum canadense) and the leaves are hosts for the caterpillars of many of them as well.

A modest summer native, White Avens, blooms in the partial sunshine at the edge of the trail.  It hosts many insects even though its blooms are tiny.

A Midland Painted Turtle ((Chrysemys picta marginata) sat calmly tucked within its shell in the middle of the path as I headed back to the parking lot. I’m guessing it was a female looking for bare ground in which to dig a hole and lay her eggs. Though it wasn’t an ideal spot, I kept my opinion to myself and I left her to it.

A Midland Painted Turtle sat in the path, perhaps looking for bare ground in which to lay her eggs.

The Eastern Section:  A Longer Hike Among the Winged Beauties of a Sunny, Flowering Prairie

The Northern Prairie in June never disappoints!

No question about which path to take this month! One Sunday, my husband and I headed straight out to the restored prairie, excited to see what was blooming and buzzing. Again this year, what a delight! Under a bright, blue sky, the slightest breeze made the thigh-high grass and wildflowers bow and sway to the musical accompaniment of bird song. What could be better?

On the Way to the Prairie

As we walked north, the music was supplied by two bright yellow birds. A male American Goldfinch at the tip of a snag trilled his quick, syncopated song that always seems to include a couple of loud “tweets.” And farther away, near the small marsh to the west, we spotted the Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) who is more common this year than ever! The male loves to sing his “witchedy” song from shrubs or low limbs near a wetland. (Click on photos to enlarge; hover cursor for captions.)

At our feet on the entrance path, a small American Painted Lady politely sat for her portrait in the short grass.

American Painted Ladies have only a 2 inch wingspan – but what a brilliant design!

The Common Ringlet (Coenonympha tullia), an even smaller butterfly at less than an inch a half, was fluttering from one grass stem to another on the path, perhaps to thwart being snatched by a dragonfly or other predator. Finally it settled for more than a split second. Nice barbershop stripes on the antennae!

The orange and gray Common Ringlet moves quickly in the grass, probably to avoid predators like the dragonflies.

Birds of  Various Sizes on the Prairie, including One Difficult Invasive Species

Reaching the prairie, I knelt among the tall grasses and wildflowers to take a shot and suddenly noticed the thin, gray neck and head of a Sandhill Crane (Antigone canadensis) just above the flower tops.

A Sandhill Crane appeared over the edge of a slope as it looked back at its two companions.

Actually, we ultimately saw three of them stalking slowly just under the crest of the flowering slope. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology informs me that in our region,  juveniles stay with their parents until they nest again in April or May and then form foraging groups with other juveniles out on their own. Since these birds had adult plumage and were similar in size, I’m guessing this group may have been just such a cohort of young Sandhills.

On top of the hill, a female Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) defended her nest, perhaps from invasive House Sparrows (Passer domesticus). This Eurasian species, once called “English Sparrows,” have been ravaging some of the prairie nest boxes. Volunteer nest box monitors have found boxes with beheaded nestlings, an attack typical of House Sparrows, which compete with our native cavity nesting birds. House Sparrows can ruin the eggs or kill the young of bluebirds, tree swallows and other cavity nesters. When we find a box with eggs, Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Nestwatch program asks us to remove or addle them to help control the burgeoning House Sparrow population. Since they are so widespread and have such a harmful affect on native birds, they’re considered an invasive species and are not protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. So although it makes us more than a bit squeamish, we monitors try to comply! (Thanks to iNaturalist photographer avepel for the House Sparrow photo.)

A female Bluebird defending her nestbox from predators like the House Sparrow.
House Sparrow by avepel (CC BY-NC) at inaturalist.org
A House Sparrow egg removed from the nest by a nestbox monitor

 

On a happier note, a Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla) found some food for its young in the tall prairie grass, snagging what appeared to be a dragonfly. In my limited experience, Field Sparrows are shy during most of the summer. But when it’s time to lay the eggs and feed the young, they’re good providers and so are a bit more visible. You won’t see Field Sparrows in an urban or suburban setting like House Sparrows; they insist on wide open spaces! As a result, their numbers are currently in decline, so I’m glad we’re preserving prairie for them!

This Field Sparrow found a dragonfly to take back to the nest which is probably in a low shrub nearby..

An Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) flew to the ground and returned to a branch, its tail characteristically pumping up and down, as it also looked for insects in the tall grass.  I caught it just as it prepared for takeoff.

A Phoebe about to take off after an insect at the edge of the prairie.

Dramatic Dragonflies, Tiny Pollinators, and Other Unfortunate Eggs

More native summer wildflowers bloom with each passing day as the restored prairie comes to full bloom. The color and scent are attracting little pollinators and the dragonflies looking for lunch! These three native wildflowers were planted as part of the prairie restoration and are particular favorites of mine.

With my birding partners, I saw my first ever Calico Pennant dragonfly (Celithemis elisa) along the prairie loop path. Wow! We were all pretty impressed with this creature! The bright orange abdomen indicates a male and a young one, since the yellow spots near the wing tips turn red as they mature.

A young male Calico Pennant dragonfly landed on a grass stem on the prairie’s loop path.

The elegant Widow Skimmer dragonfly (Libellula luctuosa) landed along the loop path as well. The yellow and black abdomen indicates that it’s a juvenile and the just-developing white patches beside the dark wing patch means that this one is a juvenile male. With the birders, I saw another juvenile at a similar stage and when I got home, wondered if we’d seen one who’d narrowly escaped a predator. It seemed to be managing quite nicely, though, flying with no difficulty among the stalks of prairie grasses.

The Hoverflies (family Syrphidae) were busy finding nectar and inadvertently doing their large share of pollination.

A Hoverfly found a nice shady spot to sip nectar on this Sand Coreopsis

Another little Hoverfly clasped the stamen of a non-native Common St. John’s Wort  (Hypericum perforatum) blossom as it drank nectar. Dr. Parsons, the entomologist who helped me with hoverflies, says that hoverfly mouthparts are not like the long sipping straws of butterflies. Instead their mouthparts are soft with a hairy tip that sponges up nectar so that the mouth at the end of tip can draw it in. Normally the mouthparts are folded under the head, but they extend them like this little one is doing to reach for food. They can also liquify pollen with their saliva and drink it up as well. No wonder they distribute so much pollen!

A Hoverfly drinking nectar from a non-native wildflower

One of the nest monitors reported seeing a Snapping Turtle ((Chelydra serpentina) laying eggs on the west edge of the north prairie. But when my husband and I came across a turtle nest along the western side, some hungry animal – perhaps a raccoon or coyote –  had dug the eggs up for a meal. I can’t be sure we saw the Snapper’s nest. The egg remains look small enough to perhaps be those of a Painted Turtle or the much rarer Blanding’s Turtle (Emys blandingii ) that one of our bird monitors has seen twice on the trails as well.

A turtle nest robbed by a predator.

And down in the short grass, a small Amber Snail (family Succineidae) moved languidly along the path, oblivious of all the prairie drama above. Isn’t it interesting that they have eyes on the end of those translucent tentacles on their heads?

An Amber Snail whose eyes are at the end of the transparent tentacles on its head..

Nature Asks that We Love It, Warts and All

Sand Coreopsis in summer sunshine on Draper prairie

It’s a temptation to romanticize who and what we love, isn’t it? For me, nature’s always been full of creativity, beauty, harmony – and I’m not wrong about that. Watch a cardinal stuff a seed into its mates beak to woo her. Or see a a mother raccoon cope with a treeful of young after a long night of foraging. Or learn how trees feed their young through the miraculous network of ancient underground fungi.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to accept that there’s a fierceness to nature, too – not just tornadoes and floods but everyday survival fierceness: an empty turtle nest; the caterpillar that consumes its live host; an owl swooping down on a baby rabbit; a dragonfly snatched by a field sparrow.

And then there are burgeoning invasive species introduced by humans:  the house sparrow’s predation, the bittersweet vine choking the life out of trees, the zebra mussels changing the environment of the Great Lakes.

Nature’s solutions to life’s endless challenges and change may not always be pretty, but they have sustained our kind and all life on this planet for millennia. Each time I venture out into the natural world, I’m being shown the importance of honoring and preserving the complex, carefully balanced, interwoven systems that nature has worked out over eons. Until recently, humans were blind to those finely tuned systems and we have unwittingly done serious harm to them in multiple ways. But now we are beginning to see and understand what we’ve done. Now we know that these delicately balanced relationships can be restored if we have the will to do so. I’m glad our small green corner of the planet has made a commitment to doing just that.